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THE 



FUTURE RELATIONS 



English-Speaking Communities. 



AN ESSAY 

KEAD BEFOEE THE 

ELEVENTH CONVENTION 

OF THE 

North America St. George's Union, 

AT 

CHICAGO, 

August so, 1884, 

BY 

CHARLES F. BENJAMIN, 

OF 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 
GIBSON BROTHERS, PRINTERS. 

1884. 



y 



• Ev'n uow we hear with inward strife 
" A motion toiling in the gloom — 
"The Spirit of the years to come 

'Yearning to mix himself with Life." 

' A slow-develop'd strength awaits 
"Completion iu a jminful school; 
"Phantoms of other forms of rule, 

' New Majesties of mighty States — " 

' The warders of the growing hour, 

"But vagiie in vapour, hard to mark; 
" And round them sea and air are dark 

' With great contrivances of Power." 

--Tennyson. 



''''■"^,. 



THE FUTURE RELATIONS 



English-Speaking Communities. 



By the phi'ase " English-speaking communities "' is meant that 
group of poKtical societies, having their seats in the British Isles, 
North America, Australasia, and South Africa, which has for a 
common inheritance the language, litei-ature, laws, and habitudes 
popularly described as Anglo-Saxon. Of the whole number of 
individuals constituting the group more than one-half are em- 
bodied in a single community, occupying an extensive and com- 
pact territory, exercising sovereignty in its political affairs, con- 
sciously restricting its commercial intercourse with the other 
members of the group according to its view of what is con- 
ducive to its industrial development, and having a strong senti- 
mental attachment for what, in default of a better generical term, 
we may call Anglo-Saxonism, although its characteristics are no- 
ticeably modified from the ideal Anglo-Saxon type by extensive 
admixture with other race elements, as well as by influences due 
to contact with the vast and originally savage domain wherein it 
has spent the two centuries and more of its existence. Nearly 
one-tenth of the members of this community are of negro descent, 
but these, having been for nearly 200 years domesticated with the 
most Saxon-like portion of the white inhabitants, exert no diverg- 
ing influence upon such Anglo-Saxon tendencies as are current 
among the dominant race. 

Bordering upon the United States is another member of the 
family, similarly possessed of an ample and contiguous territory, 
exercising political independence without formal sovereignty, pur- 
suing somewhat less rigidly a hke commercial policy, having a 
more active sense of the family unity, less affected by the presence 
of Teutonic and Celtic elements of population ; but, on the other 



hand, yoked with a numerous and persistent sub-society of Latin 
origin and tendencies. 

In Australasia we find seven poHtical organisms, strongly Anglo- 
Saxon in descent and disposition, endowed liberally as to territo- 
rial extent, agricultural in theu* industrial organization and, as to 
some of them, burdened for the time being with grave problems 
connected with the native tribes whom they have supplanted. 

In South Africa are two adjacent societies, thinly spread over a 
large area, practically independent (as are all the others) in theu" 
political concerns, having a population chiefly Teutonic in descent 
and charactei'istics, and weighted by a native question still more 
perplexing than the similar problem in Australia. 

Last in the order of review comes the parent community, small 
as to its portion of the solid earth : but swarming, rich, indus- 
trious, progressive, and enterprising, with a political organiza- 
tion wherein tradition and fact blend with and, at times, cross 
each other in a multitude of waj's which are at once the admu'ation 
and the despair of the studious foreigner. This member of the 
family has a domestic question of the first importance in the guise 
of a sub-community amongst whose population poverty, ignor- 
ance, discontent, resentment, and turbulence largely prevail, and 
although there is great amelioration in these respects, as com- 
pared with earlier days, a variety of new agencies has arisen to 
aggravate the mischief that remains. 

Such is a hurried and broad view of the status, and the rela- 
tions with regard to each other, of the English-speaking commu- 
nities. Each organizes, directs, and supports its own administra- 
tion, except that the parent state exercises suzeraint}^ over all the 
others but the United States, and charges itself, from first to last, 
with a large expenditure in the maintenance thereof. This status 
and these relations are admittedly unsatisfactorj', nor have they 
the elements of permanence. Will Canada, for example, be foi'- 
ever content with the fact of nationality, obsciu'ed as it is by the 
appearance of dependence ? True, there is a sentimental satisfac- 
tion in the existing connection with the mother coimtry, and that 
sentiment counts for much in human affairs we know by universal 
experience and by the pain Avhich Canadians feel at the mere sug- 
gestion of a change. But in the days when she shall be populous 
and rich, she must federate with Great Britain or separate from it. 



In those days, every avenue to power and distinction must be open 
to her sons in a British confederation, or she must endow them 
with satisfying careers in other directions. It caimot be that her 
statesmen will forever rest content with those minor honors which 
in the sovereign state are deemed the appropriate rewards of suc- 
cessful tradesmen, municipal zealots, and the useful but incon- 
spicuous functionaries of a court or a ministry. Nor, on the other 
hand, will the central government perpetually charge itself with 
the defence of Canada and her interests without an effective voice 
in the direction of her affairs and a substantial contribution in aid 
of imperial expenditure. And the case will be the same, in both 
aspects, with regard to Australia and South Africa, though prob- 
ably not so soon. 

What, then, are to be the relations of the future ? Columbia 
(using for the nonce the popular term of personification for the 
United States) will assuredly continue her independent career, 
largely occupying herself in the reformation of her generally 
inefficient and too often corrupt municipalities, exchanging waste- 
fulness for econom}^ in her modes of cultivation, gradually adapt- 
ing her social structure to the needs of a population ever growing 
in density and culture, and in time emancipating herself from that 
servile devotion to the almighty dollar which lies at the root of the 
anomalous and reproachful discontent so widely spread amongst 
masses that are really free, intelligent and prosperous. Manifest 
destiny will be accomplished by the extension of her boundaries 
to the isthmus of Darien, (a movement foreshadowed by the peace- 
ful invasion of Mexico progressing before oiu* eyes,) and this wUl 
result from the inevitable logic of events, without violence, cun- 
ning, or premeditation. Nor will this great expansion seriously 
or permanently affect the fundamental institutions of the country ; 
for, in lieu of standing armies and arbitrary governments, the pio- 
neers and adventurers of the movement will carry with them those 
political habits out of which local government, directed by law and 
devoted to order, spontaneously arises whensoever and whei'eso- 
ever but a handful of English-speaking and English-thinking men 
find themselves projected beyond the frontier of then* accustomed 
civilization. 

Canada, grown too large for present bonds and yet clinging to 
a tie that is all the stronger for holding by the heart rather than 



the head, will doubtless dally for awhile with impossible schemes 
of confederation centreing in the device of an imperial parliament 
and cabinet at London, and then take her place in the family of 
nations in the habit of a constitutional monarchy, presided over 
by a dynasty deriving descent from the present beloved Queen. 
But the social fibre of the new kingdom will be found incapable 
of sustaining a throne and court, and the monarchy, so useful in 
bridging a chasm on the journey, will peacefully disappear, to be 
as quietly succeeded by a republic constituted according to the 
lights of those later and, it may be, better days. Long before 
then, the barriers to true fraternal intercourse which resentment 
and over-reaching selfishness have erected along the boundary will 
have disappeared, and in the end will not Canadians be found 
asking themselves why they should not take the last step needed 
to crown their political edifice and thus give another and perhaps 
the strongest possible pledge of perpetual peace and friendship 
amongst all Avho speak the mother tongue "? Even now, they may 
be able to remember, without bitterness, that those desultory 
whisperings of annexation which awoke their indignation years 
ago, while they were still weak and dissevered, came from men 
who wished only to make the air of America as deadly to human 
bondage as that of England, and who longed to find, in the robust 
atmosphere and yeomamy of Ontario, a counterpoise to schemes 
of southerly extension in the interest of the institution of African 
slavery. They can bear witness that since the devotion of the 
whole area of the United States to freedom the American press 
and people have had no other desire than that then- brethren over 
the border should work out their political destiny in their own 
time and manner. It would be a proud and happy day for the 
Union when Canada should be heard saying : " Lo ! I stand 
knocking ;" but the message, howsoever long delayed, will come 
spontaneously, if ever it come, upon full, internal conviction of 
those who speak it, and be equally welcome whether uttered in a 
decade or a century hence. 

The AustraHan colonies will, to all appearances, soon unite in a 
confederation modeled upon that of Canada, and we may reason- 
ably expect their after cai-eer to resemble her own, save that, as 
the transition from colonial dependence to a republic will doubt- 
less come later in point of time, it is likely to be made by a direct, 



single step, and with this further exception, that the seat of na- 
tional government will always remain in Australia, although the 
republic is destined to spread over the greater part of Oceanica. 

Following closely the steps of Australia we may look to see 
South Africa, when, in due course of the development of her po- 
litical institutions, her time of sovereignty shall come. She will 
have room in abundance and resources equal to any rational dreams 
of extension. 

But how will it fare with the dear old Mother at home, after her 
children, all grown to manhood, shall have started in Hfe for them- 
selves ? Will her glory or her fortune be dimmed, or her natural 
force abated ? Confidently may go forth the answer : She will be 
no whit the less active, or happy, or flourishing. That practical 
sagacity which has never failed her at a crisis (except in that one, 
unhappy moment when she lost America) will teach her when and 
how to win and hold to her side (just as Canada and Australia 
have in part won and held for her) the masses of that generous 
but emotional people who have not yet been permitted to learn 
that Anglo-Saxon energy and shrewdness have their counterparts 
in Anglo-Saxon justice and generosity. And when law and gov- 
ernment in Ireland shall have been established upon the only true 
foundations, so that equity and reason are satisfied, folly and 
iniquity may vainly dash their heads against the rocks, and' Eng- 
land will have made a conquest at her very door worth to her far 
more than that boasted Indian empire whose teeming population 
is, in the mass, as little touched by European habit and thought 
as when Clive first gave life and impulse to that vast network of 
bureaucracy and officiaHsm which passes at home for the genuine 
spread and penetration of civilization. 

Next in importance to the work of a real pacification of Ireland 
(which, for better or worse, is joined pohtically to England by an 
inexorable law of nature) is the pursuit and enlargement of the 
great scheme of universal education so happily begun but a few 
years ago ; for it is in the quality rather than the size of a popu- 
lation that strength and safety lie, and with nations, as with indi- 
viduals, happiness is more to be desii-ed than acquisitiou. 

Closely connected with the question of education is that of re- 
ligion ; for what would be the gain in exchanging dullards and 
sots for voluptuaries and sharpers ? Religion, then, must be set 



6 

free to grow and strengthen by loosing the enervating bond be- 
tween the State and sectai-ianism that has long outlasted whatso- 
ever there may have been of merit in its beginning. Official sys- 
tems of faith and morals have usually borne practical fruit of infi- 
delity and hypocrisy. 

In the good time to which we are looking forward, the small 
and therefore doubly precious heritage of land in Britain will be 
made to yield its maximum of well-being by emancipating it from 
those remnants of the feudal system and habit that still obstruct 
its free use and transfer. Public spu'it will be strengthened by the 
institution of provincial assemblies to legislate upon local concerns 
and the great parliament thus rescued from the paralysis that is 
undermining it. The national energies, too much captivated at 
times by the sound of the drum-beat that rolls around the world, 
will be hereafter increasingly devoted to bettering the condition 
of every member of the population at home and every foot of the 
native soil. And why should they not ? The seeds of Anglo-Sax- 
onism, grown in the small island garden, have been carried over 
the earth, planted in kindly soil and have taken strong root, so 
that neither wind, nor rain, nor frost, nor heat can do them aught 
but good hereafter, and the husbandmen may Avell turn for a time 
to improving the fruitful beds and borders that have so enriched 
the terrestrial parts of the universe. 

Seated upon the ocean and incapable of territorial expansion, 
both circumstance and necessity will combine to preserve to the 
Motherland her supremacy in manufactures and navigation, for 
the rest of the family have too wide a range of place and function 
to concentrate, for centuries yet, upon those two industries as she 
can and must and will do. Thus, though her population will more 
and more fill her bounds, it will continue to find better standing 
room and a larger field of action, and any who may long for change 
will always have a broad choice in migration, without the sense or 
pain of exile. 

The historical monuments and memories of England will for- 
ever constitute her a shiine to which unceasing pilgrimages from 
the newer Englands will be made. She will long preserve her 
throne, her hereditary legislatui-e and her stately ancestral homes, 
and the influence of ancient names will long survive ; but all of 
these in orderly subordination to whatsoever shall, at any time, be 



strougiy recognized as the public good or the public wish. No- 
where else will be found such concentration of numbers, riches, cul- 
ture, knowledge, leisure, social life, and of whatever else best minis- 
ters to the senses and faculties of civilized society. Whether for 
recreation or iustrviction, it is to England that the seeker will in- 
creasingly turn for his highest gratification. Many and many a 
day will the New Zealander be found sitting contemplatively upon 
London Bridge, but vain will be his quest for the broken arch to 
which the splendid but often inaccurate diction of Macaulay has 
invited him. 

An English sociologist has lately ventured to forecast the census 
rolls of the English-speaking nations as they will appear a century 
hence. Taking the present numbers and the ratio of increase dur- 
ing some half a century, and reducing to approximate calculations 
every accelerating and retarding influence suggested by reason or 
experience, he assigns to the American Union of the future a popu- 
lation of eight hundred millions ; to Canada sixtj^ millions ; to 
Australia forty-five millions ; to the CajDe Colonies fifteen milhons, 
and to the British Isles seventy millions — in all nearly one thou- 
sand millions of people speaking a common tongue, possessed of 
a literature the richest in the world, having the highest training 
and the broadest experience in political and social concerns, striv- 
ing not altogether vainly towards a moral standard the most ex- 
cellent yet proffered to the observance of mankind, and behind and 
beside all, the prestige of more than a thousand years of unrivalled 
and unceasing progress. Stupendous as these estimates are, they 
become only the more convincing as grounds of refutation or modi- 
fication ai'e sought. It was, perhaps, in the ecstasy of a prophetic 
vision of such a future that one of England's poets addressed to 
all who speak the tongue which he so loved and adorned, this in- 
vocation — 

" Oh ye who, in eternal youth, 

" Speak with a living and creative flood 

" This universal English, and do stand 

" Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand 

" Heroic utterance — parted, yet a whole ; 

" Far, yet unsevered ; children, brave and free, 

" Of the great mother-tongue— and ye shall be 

" Lords of an empire wide as Shakspeare's soul, 

" Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme, 

" And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream." 



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